A critical analysis of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s African Oresteia

Abstract

Pasolini's Appunti per un’Orestiade africana (1970) is a metaphorical film, inspired by the Greek legend of Orestes, in which Pasolini views postcolonial African history through the lens of mythology. His portrait of the birth of “modern” Africa is an attempt to narrate the passage from past to present and to salvage "prehistory" through his dream of the unification of the rational, democratic state and the irrational, primal slate of being. It is, however, a dream punctuated by contradictions and paradoxes, a dream which Pasolini will later abandon. Yet it is significant in the overall development of Pasolini's genre.